1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a physical-information detecting system which obtains physical information from a living subject such as a patient.
2. Related Art Statement
A plurality of physiological- or physical-information detecting devices such as an electrocardiograph (ECG), a blood pressure (BP) measuring device (e.g., BP monitor), and/or a blood oxygen saturation measuring device (i.e., oximeter) are used by being worn on each of a plurality of patients, so as to obtain an electrocardiogram, a blood pressure value, and/or a blood oxygen saturation value from the patient, respectively. The thus obtained various sorts of physical information are processed by a common physical-information output device, so that a visual representation of the various sorts of physical information is output for each patient on a display or a record sheet and so that a medical worker observes the plural sorts of physical information all at once.
For example, a group of an ECG, a BP monitor, and an oximeter are worn on each of patients undergoing medical treatments in an intensive care unit (ICU) of a hospital, and three sorts of physical information are transmitted by radio, by optical communication, or alternatively by using respective electric signals from the three detectors to a center display device, so that the display device displays the plural sorts of physical information for each patient, separately from those for the other patients. With this monitor system, a medical worker such as a doctor or a nurse can read the plural sorts of physical information for each patient all at once.
Each of the physical-information detectors generates a physical-information signal representing detected physical information, and an identification signal identifying the particular detector which provides that physical-information signal. The common output device processes the physical-information signal transmitted from each detector, and outputs a visual representation of the physical information represented by the processed signal.
However, if one of the physical-information detectors is erroneously worn on an incorrect patient who is, for example, next to a correct patient to be monitored, the above-indicated, prior physical-information monitor system would output the physical information erroneously obtained from the incorrect patient, as the physical information of the correct patient to be monitored, because the prior monitor system does not identify each patient but only identifies each detector based on the identification signal supplied together with the physical-information signal from that particular detector.